Soul loss is when a part of us leaves and does not fully come back. In the past this mostly happened through trauma, illness or grief; today the commonest cause is that we send parts of ourselves away in order to fit in. Its symptoms, such as numbness, depression, aimlessness and a sense that something is missing, are so common that they read like a description of modern life, and shamanism heals it through soul retrievalSoul retrieval. Finding an exiled soul-part and inviting it home. In the modern psyche the fort-holder who sent it away must consent first, and the retrieval itself is a beginning: the real work is integration. Read the full answer.
What is soul loss? #
The loss of a part of ourselves. Soul loss describes what happens when a part of our psyche leaves us and does not fully come back: “soul-loss occurs when we lose part of our soul.”1 It is not a sign of being broken. It is a survival response, in which a part withdraws because staying fully present is too much.
The “soul” here has a small s. It means the middle-worldMiddle-world. Ordinary physical reality together with its energetic layers: the realm of individuality, separation and mixed intentions, and the only realm where harm is possible. “If there is a hell, then it is the middle-world.” Read the full answer parts of us that can be lost and retrieved, not the Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer Soul, which is never lost. See What is the difference between Soul and a soul part?
Why does soul loss matter? #
Because it is one of the two shamanic roots of illness. “Remember, shamanism says that we get ill for one of two reasons – soul-loss and power-lossPower-loss. Disconnection from nature, the web of life and our place in it: like being unplugged from the national grid. One of the two root causes of shamanic illness, healed by reconnection (not by soul retrieval), beginning with the Power Animal bond. Read the full answer. When we suffer soul-loss or power-loss it weakens us and leaves holes in us.”2 Through those holes, intrusions can get in. In hunter-gatherer cultures, soul-loss and power-loss “tend to be transitory things”, because anyone who suffered from them would be healed “as a matter of urgency”.3
What causes soul loss? #
The causes have changed over time. In traditional cultures, they were mainly painful events. Amongst hunter-gatherers “the principal causes of soul loss usually would have been things like bereavement (or other causes of broken heartedness), illness, or shock and trauma.”4 Abuse and co-dependency can cause it too.5 Grief is a common example: “grief often involves soul-loss”.6 Each of these can make a part of us withdraw.
What is the commonest cause of soul loss today? #
Sending parts of ourselves away to fit in. “However, as I have been discussing, the principal cause of soul loss in modern times is usually that we send part of our own soul away, to ‘fit in’. We variously send away our own playfulness, creativity, spontaneity, joy, passion, wildness, sensitivity, vulnerability, confidence, assertiveness, care-freeness, cleverness, sadness, tears, anger, and so on.”7
Often this begins with introjectsIntroject. A foreign belief, message or story swallowed whole (often in childhood) and lodged inside as if it were our own; a type of intrusion. More about this, the ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ we take in as children: “if you are repeatedly criticised or rejected, punished or shamed for a particular part of yourself, in order to survive you have to block that part off.” On a cultural scale, we are “suffering catastrophic levels of soul-loss, due to the way that we have domesticated ourselves in order to fit in and survive.”8
What are the symptoms of soul loss? #
The list of symptoms is long. It includes “Feelings of numbness or flatness; of just ‘going through the motions’; like a spark is missing”, “Feeling lost, indecisive and aimless”, “Missing memories (where have the memories gone, and why did they go?)”, “A sense of never having really recovered from a past event”, and “Inability to move on from an issue or event, despite efforts to do so.” The distinguishing mark is this: “soul-loss is characterised by some (or even all) of the above, plus having a sense that part of you is missing somehow.”9
In short: “depression; fatigue; feeling stuck; lack of enthusiasm; addictions; a sense of something missing.”10
How common is soul loss? #
Extremely. The symptoms of soul-loss and power-loss “read like a description of things that many people struggle with in modern-day life”.11 Paul Francis has not met a human these days who does not suffer from profound soul-loss. It is endemic to modern-day culture. In other words, it is part of modern life.
Is soul loss the same as depression or anxiety? #
No. Depression and anxiety can be symptoms of soul loss, but that does not make them the same thing. Yet “If you read the symptoms of soul-loss – things like depression, anxiety, apathy, procrastination, aimlessness, a persistent feeling of something missing in life – you could almost be reading a description of Western culture.”
Shamanic healing is not a cure for every case: “Shamanism is not a magic cure. It will not always work to heal your bad back or your anxiety, your diabetes or your depression.”12
How is soul loss different from Power-loss? #
They share most of their symptoms but have different causes. Soul loss is the loss of a part of us; Power-loss is disconnection from nature. “Whereas power-loss is characterised by some or all of the above symptoms, plus a disconnection from the natural world.”13 They are healed differently too: preventing soul-loss is an ongoing practice, but “healing soul-loss that has already occurred tends to be marked by a series of events. These events are ‘soul-retrievals’.”14 See What is Power-loss? and How are Power-loss, soul loss and loss of personal power different?
Where do lost soul parts go? #
Out of the room altogether. Sometimes, when soul loss happens, a lost soul partSoul-part. A small-s, middle-world part of the self that can be lost (sent away) and can be retrieved. Not the capital-S Soul. Read the full answer is not in the room to be dialogued with. It is not just repressed but has actually left altogether.
In a journey, a lost part may be found in the shamanic realms. In one soul retrieval, the part is found on a cliff in the Lower-World, with Raven, “who had been looking after the soul-part and keeping it safe.”15 Parts lost very early in life “may never fully arrive and settle into the body and into human form”, and may appear as a ball of light or an egg.16 See What is soul retrieval?
What is the difference between a lost soul part and an exiled part of self? #
A lost soul part has gone; other parts stayed. If every part had left, we would have died, so some part always stays behind. This part is the fort-holderFort-holder. A protective part of the self that stayed behind to ‘man the fort’ when we were wounded: the inner critic, perfectionist, pusher, pleaser: the loyal soldier still fighting a war that ended long ago. Usually the part that sent an orphan away, so no deep healing holds without its consent; befriended, never extracted. Read the full answer, and it may resist the lost part’s return, “Because it is the fort-holder who sent the lost soul-part away”.17 So there are fort-holders and orphans. The OrphanOrphans. The parts of the self sent away altogether when we were wounded: our confidence, vulnerability, playfulness, innocence. Having genuinely left, they cannot merely be talked with: they must be retrieved. Read the full answer is a part of us that we have sent away, and it needs to be found, healed, and integrated back into the self.
In this sense an “exiled” part is the lost part: the Orphan is cast out, exiled, parentless and abandoned. Parts we have repressed are still with us, but a part that has left altogether needs shamanism to find it. See What are child, Orphan, fort-holder and protector parts?
